


The Bandstand

by elusive_ellipsis



Series: Half-Decent Omens [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alpha Centauri (Good Omens), Angst, Armageddon (Good Omens), Aziraphale Lies (Good Omens), Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Holding Hands (Good Omens), Crowley Can't Say Love (Good Omens), Crowley Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Crowley Yells at God (Good Omens), Crowley is Angry at God (Good Omens), Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), Crowley's Sunglasses (Good Omens), Dear Angel (Good Omens), Deviates From Canon, Heartbroken Aziraphale (Good Omens), Heartbroken Crowley (Good Omens), I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), May You Be Forgiven (Good Omens), Scene: The Bandstand (Good Omens), St James's Park (Good Omens), Tadfield (Good Omens), The Breakup Scene (Good Omens), The Chattering Order of Saint Beryl, The Divine Plan (Good Omens), The Great Plan (Good Omens), The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:07:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25288069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elusive_ellipsis/pseuds/elusive_ellipsis
Summary: An alternative version of the bandstand scene from Good Omens, which, in an attempt to make it less heartbreaking, may have become more so than before. I'm sorry?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Half-Decent Omens [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757263
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	The Bandstand

Peering out at the grey sky and the rain it seemed to threaten, Crowley stood under the shelter of the bandstand. Seconds passed like fractions of the fourteenth century as he waited, glancing around for Aziraphale. The demon was on edge - and he wasn't that way often. He paced across the circle and back again, until Aziraphale finally hurried up the steps to meet him.

"Any news?" said Crowley.

Aziraphale fidgeted. "News?" he stammered. "Like - like what?" He glanced behind him and back at Crowley, who swayed a little on the spot.

"The Antichrist? You remember that child, the one we lost track of eleven years ago, who could bring about the end of the world any time now? Have you found his name, address and shoe size yet?"

Aziraphale shook his head slightly. "Shoe size?" His voice was unsteady. "Why - why on earth would I have his shoe size?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Crowley, who was fighting the urge to actually pull on his hair. "Maybe you tracked down his records, found out where his parents shop, rifled through the rusty old filing cabinet in the back room for their customer information and found out his name and address from the shoes he bought two months ago."

Aziraphale made small gestures of desperate confusion.

"I-I-I don't have anything for you, Crowley," he said in his best imitation of sincerity. Crowley narrowed his eyes and said nothing. Aziraphale felt sure he'd seen through his lie. He was a demon, after all; he must have had plenty of experience with liars. Instead, Crowley threw his arms up in exasperation and rolled his eyes. 

"Typical. Less than a week before Armageddon, and we're spending our time on a wild goose chase for a child - a child! - to try and make sure he doesn't end the world. How did we not notice? Surely at some point during those  _ eleven years _ one of us would have figured out that ambassador's son wasn't the Antichrist. But no! I mean, if we could be fired, we'd be fired by now. Blacklisted, at that. How did we miss it?"

"We wanted him to be normal, didn't we? So, when he was, we thought, ‘Perfect.’ There was no way we could have known, Crowley. Normal was always the aim." Aziraphale checked over his shoulder; the swelling clouds seemed to watch him through the trees.

"Not this normal! We could make any old kid a perfect balance of good and evil if we wanted, but it wouldn't matter. And now the  _ real _ threat to the future of the planet is off somewhere else, starting the war to end everything."

Aziraphale stared helplessly as Crowley paced the bandstand; thunder purred somewhere far off in the darkening sky. "It's the Great Plan, Crowley," he said. "We can't just... interfere."

"No. No, no, no. You do not get to hide behind the Great Plan this time, angel. You were just as committed to this as I was. You don't want the world to end any more than I do. Don't even try to deny it, I'm sick of it. This is not about the Great Plan anymore. You know what? Great pustulent mangled bollocks to the Great blasted Plan! What has it ever done for us except leave us constantly glancing over our shoulders for fear of consequences from head office? No, really tell me. That's right - nothing."

Aziraphale opened his mouth as if to speak, but Crowley wasn't finished.

"If this is God's idea of fun, They are a very twisted being indeed. Because that's all this is, really, isn't it? It's a game, where the Almighty holds all the cards and just grins at us like some maniac as we fumble our way through the world They’ve devised for us all. Maybe we should just run away somewhere, you and me. Some different galaxy, one that isn't going to imminently go up in flames, because God is a slippery bastard, and no one else is having fun!"

Crowley yelled his last words up to the sky, as if the Almighty were going to pay better attention if he aimed them at Them.

Lightning crackled at the gates of St James’s Park. Briefly, Aziraphale was lit up from behind and his hair flickered with light. "Crowley," he said, his voice strained as he tried to hold back the emotion that flooded him; "We can't just... Run away. That's - that's impossible."

"Impossible?" Crowley laughed. "You know what's impossible? The fate of billions of souls resting on the whims of an eleven-year-old. And yet your God has chosen that to be the unbecoming of this planet. You know what's impossible? Destroying this Earth to settle a grudge between your boss and Their son.  _ That _ should be impossible. And if it isn't, well then who's to say  _ anything _ needs to be bound by 'possible'?"

Crowley walked up to Aziraphale, stopping mere inches from him and prodding a finger into the angel's chest.

"You, Aziraphale, are a coward."

Aziraphale shifted on his feet as the thunderstorm kept growing, sending flashes of light dancing around the pair. "Impossible is hereditary enemies coming together to fight fate itself." Thunder filled the moment of silence; Crowley simply stared, his expression hidden behind dark glasses. Aziraphale felt a sliver of warmth from the demon's breath against the rising cold. "I'm an _angel_ , Crowley. I can't abandon God for - for _this_."

Crowley sagged a little, as if something inside him had crumpled and collapsed. His hand dropped back to his side.

"You are loyal to a fault, Aziraphale," said the demon quietly. "I've always... always...  _ appreciated _ that about you. But do you really think your God offers you the same dedication in return?"

Aziraphale took a step back from Crowley, shocked. 

"I've tolerated a lot from you, Crowley, and I know this is hard - you don't think I'm kicking myself for our mistakes too? But what do you know of God, to speak of Them in this way? May you be forgiven."

Crowley laughed again. It was a dry laugh, empty of joy and humour, instead born of disbelief and bitterness. "Forgiven? Angel, have you forgotten what I am? I'm a demon. Not just unforgiven but unforgivable. I don't get to retreat back into the comfort of my faith and equivocate about morality. I'm _evil_ , or has that slipped your mind? This Hell you want to defeat - that's me. I don't get redemption. I don't get satisfaction in knowing I'm doing the right thing, and I certainly don't get to hang around angels. Do you know what they'd do to me if they found out about us? You do, don't you? You must. You  _ know _ that your angel brethren aren't just pious messengers in white robes. They get their hands dirty just like us demons. Difference is, we don't pretend we're better than you. You should be ashamed of yourself, Aziraphale. As for me - Alpha Centauri is lovely this time of year. Perhaps I should pay it a visit. Alone."

"Even if I  _ did _ know anything I wouldn't tell you!" Aziraphale looked away. "I can't. We are on opposite sides. We _can't -_ "

"What? We can't try to save everything we have ever known, ever shared? We can't deign to step down from our pedestals of immortal pride to stop a war that doesn't need to be fought - a war whose collateral damage is the entire Earth?" Crowley threw up his hands and spun on the spot. Suddenly his glasses were clenched in one fist and his yellow eyes were blazing as lightning illuminated the sky. "We're on our side, angel! We've come  _ so _ far - why can't you take one more step? The most important step of all, in all of time?"

"I -" Sixty excuses raced through Aziraphale's mind. But looking at Crowley, who had such desperate hope in his eyes - at St James's Park, in all its beauty, even in the pouring rain - he couldn't bring himself to lie again. "I'm scared, Crowley."

Crowley froze. The emotions he was feeling... they were new to him. He didn't  _ get _ caught off guard - he was a demon, for Satan's sake. He was shaking his head slightly, as if trying to clear it. Hiding his eyes behind his glasses once more, he took a deep breath and glanced down at his shoes, then back up at Aziraphale. The angel's eyes were fixed on him, and his breathing was uneven. Crowley had known his friend to get worked up over an undercooked pastry. He had always been emotional to an extreme, but he was an angel. Things always worked themselves out in the end. They had until now, at least.

"Well then," said Crowley. "There's nothing to it. We've got to find ourselves an Antichrist."

Aziraphale hesitated. "And - and then what?" Crowley was circling towards him, looking even more shredded than he had been to start with, but determined. "We eliminate him?"

"Something." Crowley managed to give the impression of waving the matter away without lifting a hand. "We'll worry about that when we find him. Once we know where he is,  _ then _ we can..." The demon shifted his weight. "What is it?"

Aziraphale glanced down at his hands, where he had held an address scrawled in his handwriting not long before. He looked back up with a grimace, gut churning. Crowley's eyebrows sunk behind his glasses.

"Aziraphale..."

"I... it's possible that I... have the Antichrist's name and address? Not his shoe size. I don't even know how I'd begin to go about finding that, but... I know who he is, and where he is."

Crowley looked torn between pride and betrayal. "You... lied to me?"

Aziraphale was close to tears. "Yes. I wasn't going to, and then it sort of happened, and I just went with it, I suppose. I'm sorry."

"And there I was thinking I hadn't had any impression on you, dear angel. Is there anything else you're keeping from me?"

"No. Well... you know your second favourite tie, the blue one? I borrowed it once, a couple of months back, and I might have accidentally, er, burned it. You didn't say anything at the time so I hoped you hadn't noticed, but... that was me. I'm really sorry, Crowley."

Crowley stalled. "I really liked that tie," he said, playing for time while his mind and insides battled out an indescribable war. Aziraphale's face was twisted in regret; Crowley tried to see clearly through the emotional upheaval that clouded his thoughts. "It's fine," he said, and the angel looked back at him, expression shifting. "Really, it is." Aziraphale visibly relaxed a little. "Definitely nothing else you've slipped past me?"

Aziraphale's eyes flickered out to where rain fell beyond the shelter of the bandstand.

“You know what? Tell me later. It’s not really the time. Anyway..." The demon snapped his fingers and Aziraphale started. "The Antichrist." he said. "What's his name?"

"Adam Young."

"Adam, huh? I'll bet that was those nuns at the hospital. They had a thing for biblical names. I suppose the parents weren't too keen on Cain. Still, as good a name as any. And he lives in Tadfield?"

"Yes," said Aziraphale, his heart still working overtime. Even in the cold of the storm, he was still hot in the face. Embarrassment, obviously. "How did you know?"

"I've been doing some research of my own," said Crowley. "I'm not  _ completely _ useless, angel. I didn't get as far as you, I'll be honest, but there weren't  _ that _ many babies born on that particular day in that particular place."

Aziraphale bit his lip slightly sheepishly.

Crowley held out his hand. "Shall we get going? My car's... somewhere near here, and time's a-wasting. End of the world and all, you know."

Smiling, though cautiously, Aziraphale took the demon's hand and let him lead him to the Bentley. The rain had been building since they had arrived at the bandstand and it drenched the both of them, but they barely seemed to notice.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I give thanks to my good friend Lobster for their contributions to this series.


End file.
